Botswana in 2007

Originally published in the Britannica Book of the Year. Presented as archival content. Learn more.

This article was originally published in the Britannica Book of the Year, an annual print publication that
provides an overview of the year’s most-notable people and events.
Unlike most articles on Britannica.com, Book of the Year articles are not reviewed and revised after their initial publication.
Rather, they are presented on the site as archival content, intended for historical reference only.

Controversy in Botswana continued in 2007 over the eviction of Bushmen from the Central Kalahari Game Reserve. Though the high court had ruled in December 2006 that the eviction had been unlawful, Attorney General Athaliah Molokomme interpreted the judgment as applying only to the 189 petitioners of the case and their immediate families. Returnees who hunted with firearms and imported goats into the reserve were initially prosecuted but later acquitted. Meanwhile, in May, De Beers sold its diamond prospect at Gope, in the southeastern corner of the reserve, for $17 million, and a new small privately owned mine was expected to open.

Two female members of the Bushmen tribe sit outside their dwelling in the Central Kalahari Game …

AP

The transfer of sales and distribution of Botswana’s diamonds from London to Gaborone proceeded, but not without controversy. The De Beers Group’s Diamond Trading Co. neared completion of a $450 million sorting centre near Gaborone’s international airport. New foreign-owned diamond-cutting and polishing workshops, however, came into conflict with local unions over minimum wages.

Constitutional tension continued between presidentialism and the vestiges of parliamentary sovereignty. The parliament stalled the presidential cabinet’s privatization of Air Botswana on the grounds that the airline had been established by an act of parliament and that the cabinet had exceeded its prerogative. The parliament also insisted on oversight of the operations of a new national security bill that was presented by the cabinet and included draconian provisions.

Malaysian-owned Limkokwing University of Creative Technology opened a Gaborone campus in March. The government announced that it would financially sponsor students at Limkokwing and other new private institutions of higher education within Botswana, as well as continue to send students to South African and Australian universities. This drastically reduced the annual student enrollment at the University of Botswana.